Taste

​If you worked as a taste-tester of spicy foods, you'd only be able to try a few samples at a time – after that, your taste buds would become desensitized and need a rest. A newly-developed "electronic tongue," however, can accurately measure the spiciness of multiple foods for hours at a time.

We know that our perception of flavor involves a complex interaction between odors detected in the nose and tastes sensed by our tongue. A study has discovered the same olfactory receptors that detect odors in our nose can be found in taste cells on the tongue.

In extreme cases the flu virus can actually reshape the structure of the lungs. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a major part of that restructuring that until now had gone unnoticed – “taste bud cells” seem to grow in the lungs after a severe case of the flu.

The subjective nature of taste has made pinning down where this sense is processed in the brain difficult. But now researchers have finally homed in on the brain's "sweet spot," revealing the center responsible for processing different types of tastes.

Research has revealed that people with a preference for drinking coffee over tea tend to display a genetic variant that signals a higher sensitivity to tasting bitterness in caffeine. This counter-intuitive finding suggests the bitterness of caffeine reinforces an attraction to the beverage.

Researchers have found that the brain's complex systems for processing taste can be effectively manipulated. In mice, the researchers were able to directly manipulate neurons in the brain, removing the ability to taste sweet and bitter foods, or to make sweet foods taste bitter, and vice versa.

​A new study has found that when mice become obese they can also lose up to 25 percent of their taste buds. This connection between obesity and taste has previously been observed in humans but this is the first research to potentially uncover a biological explanation behind the phenomenon.

A new device could let you taste a drink without consuming any sugar or calories. The Vocktail (Virtual Cocktail) digitally changes the way a drink tastes, smells and looks, sprucing up plain old water or fine-tuning an existing drink.

Whether water has a taste of its own or is merely a flavor carrier has long divided the scientific community. A new study by Caltech researchers could help advance this debate: according to their findings, not only does such a sense exist, but it's located in an unexpected place.